More than just BPD?

[maxsterling]

So the latest - as you know there have been a few incidents of physical abuse and significant verbal abuse recently.  I have not once cursed, raised my voice, or got physical in return.  Not once.  Nor have I tried to force myself on her, intrude on her space, or touch her.  All I have done in response is remove myself from the situation, and call police when I felt my safety or her safety was threatened. 

Yet, last night, she made some comment while falling asleep about me not hurting her, as if she was actually scared I was going to do something to her in her sleep.  For her to be scared of me just seems completely backwards... .

It's almost like she's channeling how YOU feel.

Yeah.  It feels like in times of conflict, she gets confused as to who is who.  All she feels is the raw emotions of conflict and anger, and in the moment feels threatened and unstable in general, and her perception is that I am perpetuating that threat.  Is that based on a past event with someone else?  Maybe.  But if I think about it this way - two people are fighting.  In that moment, each person is not thinking about who started what or who is the aggressor.  At that time, both people's natural instinct is to protect him/herself.  Or if a kidnapper may feel threatened by the victim, because the kidnapper knows if the victim escapes, he/she is doomed.  Just thinking out loud, here.  So maybe once the conflict starts, my wife feels she must "win", otherwise she is worried how I will retaliate.  And I could see how one could get in that mindset without drawing upon past events. 

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[Verbena]

Yeah.  It feels like in times of conflict, she gets confused as to who is who.  All she feels is the raw emotions of conflict and anger, and in the moment feels threatened and unstable in general, and her perception is that I am perpetuating that threat.  Is that based on a past event with someone else?  Maybe.  But if I think about it this way - two people are fighting.  In that moment, each person is not thinking about who started what or who is the aggressor.  At that time, both people's natural instinct is to protect him/herself.  Or if a kidnapper may feel threatened by the victim, because the kidnapper knows if the victim escapes, he/she is doomed.  Just thinking out loud, here.  So maybe once the conflict starts, my wife feels she must "win", otherwise she is worried how I will retaliate.  And I could see how one could get in that mindset without drawing upon past events. 

If you're correct about this, I see  potential for some bad scenes to come. 

If your wife truly believes you are out to hurt her, especially physically, she could set up a situation in her head that leaves her feeling she has no choice but to take drastic measures to protect herself from you.  In other words, violence toward you that she alone would see as self-defense. 

Please be careful. 

[maxsterling]

Yeah.  It feels like in times of conflict, she gets confused as to who is who.  All she feels is the raw emotions of conflict and anger, and in the moment feels threatened and unstable in general, and her perception is that I am perpetuating that threat.  Is that based on a past event with someone else?  Maybe.  But if I think about it this way - two people are fighting.  In that moment, each person is not thinking about who started what or who is the aggressor.  At that time, both people's natural instinct is to protect him/herself.  Or if a kidnapper may feel threatened by the victim, because the kidnapper knows if the victim escapes, he/she is doomed.  Just thinking out loud, here.  So maybe once the conflict starts, my wife feels she must "win", otherwise she is worried how I will retaliate.  And I could see how one could get in that mindset without drawing upon past events. 

If you're correct about this, I see  potential for some bad scenes to come. 

If your wife truly believes you are out to hurt her, especially physically, she could set up a situation in her head that leaves her feeling she has no choice but to take drastic measures to protect herself from you.  In other words, violence toward you that she alone would see as self-defense. 

Please be careful. 

Yes, I have thought about this. 

[Verbena]

If you can't sleep with one eye open, sleeping in a locked separate room seems your safest bet. 

[waverider]

She senses aggression and conflict, but can't own it, so the only way to acknowledge it is to put it at your feet.

I think she has a base line neurosis and psychotic illness. Hence the lack of a baseline of reality.

Very hard to seperate nightmares from reality

[Verbena]

A psychotic break is what I'm concerned about now, Max.  You've said she is now on zero medications.  She is talking about worms in your food and says she fears you.  This is very telling. 

[Sunfl0wer]

Yeah.  It feels like in times of conflict, she gets confused as to who is who.  All she feels is the raw emotions of conflict and anger, and in the moment feels threatened and unstable in general, and her perception is that I am perpetuating that threat.  Is that based on a past event with someone else?  Maybe.  But if I think about it this way - two people are fighting.  In that moment, each person is not thinking about who started what or who is the aggressor.  At that time, both people's natural instinct is to protect him/herself.  Or if a kidnapper may feel threatened by the victim, because the kidnapper knows if the victim escapes, he/she is doomed.  Just thinking out loud, here.  So maybe once the conflict starts, my wife feels she must "win", otherwise she is worried how I will retaliate.  And I could see how one could get in that mindset without drawing upon past events.  

If you're correct about this, I see  potential for some bad scenes to come.  

If your wife truly believes you are out to hurt her, especially physically, she could set up a situation in her head that leaves her feeling she has no choice but to take drastic measures to protect herself from you.  In other words, violence toward you that she alone would see as self-defense.  

Please be careful.  

Yes, I have thought about this.  

My ex's(N/BPDtraits) exW(BPD) would feel that any normal person in the situation she put us in would want to kill/hurt her... . She therefore was frightened we were plotting to hurt her.  So in expectation, created a preemptive retaliation.  (There were no such thoughts on our part... .or reasons to think this)

I believe on some level she knew that we could not actually save her D from her alienation as she knew she would continue until forever and she knew nothing would stop her... .she felt the only way for us to protect D would be to kidnap her and leave to some undisclosed location with her.

These were not our thoughts.

She would think of HER anger.  

Then should would think how SHE would respond to such anger and behavior as her own.  

Then she would treat us as though our next step/move... .was what she had already thought out, how she would respond or want to respond.

So the police came and got us on "kidnapping" charges.

They came for us for other false reasons too... .always left apologizing to us. (Thankfully)

I guess they are sympathetic to distraught women... .and feel the need to investigate and take accusations seriously until investigated.

Thankfully We were released.  

Being blackmailed with false accusations all the time sucks!

[maxsterling]

Verbena - psychotic break.  Interesting.  The "worms" was just a dream.  That she carried on for several minutes like it was weird was strange.  If it was just "talking in her sleep" or half-asleep and she didn't remember the next day, that's one thing.  But that she remembers talking to me about it, yet at the time was not able to see it as a dream was, frankly, strange. 

Her being fearful of me thing *is* alarming.  Not to toot my own horn, but if you knew me personally, you would probably say I am one of the calmest, least threatening people you have ever met.  EVEN MY WIFE SAYS SO!  (well, not lately, though).  This situation kinda reminds me of an ex who claimed she had "visions" of me cheating on her and of other things that simply were absurd or not true.  I know my wife has PTSD of which I am no expert on, but this feels like something different.  In fact, her being fearful of *me* makes me question the reality of some of her past traumatic events, and wonder if the other people involved in those events look back differently.  Not to say that my wife did not experience trauma because I know she has, but some stories she tells me I do wonder what I would hear if I heard the other side.  If I look at the things I have witnessed with her and her friendships, she sees friends rejecting or abandoning her, and i see friends enforcing boundaries. 

[MaybeSo]

We can speculate all day long about what is going on.  She should be seen by a doctor and be in doctors care.   Does she refuse to get treatment? 

Any of the symptoms you describe could fall under ptsd or complex ptsd, or depression with psychotic features, or delusional disorder or a combination of all of the above etc. etc. She needs medical attention.

Trauma fragments memory.  A person with trauma is not a good reporter of events... because it's the nature of trauma that memory is compromised.  Fragmented, disorganized memory is one of the most telling signs OF trauma.  Trauma directly affects the hippicampus and disrupts normal encoding of memory/events.  That is why we have the classic 'flash back' symptoms... .the brain doesn't properly store traumatic experience, so it is encoded as happening in real time and the environment gives signals to stimulate real time experience... .even if happened years ago.   The memory didn't get encoded correctly and integrated so that the person differentiates an experience as having happened a long time ago... from the felt experience that something similar is happening now.  That's an issue with the encoding of experience.   It's how trauma affects memory.  This is very common with trauma especially if the person was experience something horrible and went into a freeze response during the event.  Psychiatrists that understand trauma now go into police departments to help investigators understand the fragmented presentation that is normal for a trauma victim... .because for years the disjointed reporting of trauma victims led investigators to believe the person was lying or insane.  We know understand how fragmented memory is as a symptom of trauma.

A traumatized person could easily react to a friendly person as though they pose great danger.   This happens all the time.

The amygdala becomes larger and overactive with trauma, too... .its job it to detect danger... .but with trauma... .it overreacts to minor environmental cues all the time.

Bottom line. She is sick. She needs good medical care.  I hope she gets it.

[Cat Familiar]

... .makes me question the reality of some of her past traumatic events, and wonder if the other people involved in those events look back differently.  Not to say that my wife did not experience trauma because I know she has, but some stories she tells me I do wonder what I would hear if I heard the other side.  If I look at the things I have witnessed with her and her friendships, she sees friends rejecting or abandoning her, and i see friends enforcing boundaries.  

I know just what you mean, Max. My husband has talked about a variety of people in his past and how they've mistreated him. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of some of those accounts after the splitting I've experienced recently like when he made the following comment: "All you do is criticize me." I asked him, "Really, do you think all I do is criticize you?" and he replied, "Yes."

I was raised in a highly critical home and I know that I have high standards and in the past I've been critical of him. Lately, though, I've been monitoring my speech very carefully and have been diligent about trying to say things in a positive kind way and avoiding criticism at all costs. But when I've said, "Is the washing machine empty?" that is taken as a critical comment, rather than an inquiry if he's done with his laundry. In the past I did complain that he would leave his clothes in the washer for days. He still occasionally does that, but I just put them in the laundry basket when I want to use the machine. I'm not going to try to figure out what he wants to put in the dryer and what he would hang up.

So I think about his stories of his ex-wife yelling at him every night for four hours and I wonder just how much truth there is in his account.

[maxsterling]

Yesterday, she was telling me that she feels traumatized in every room of the house because she has flashbacks of talking to police in every room of the house.  What she doesn't understand is that I feel the same traumatization, but for me it's from her screaming at me, calling me names, hitting me, or attempting suicide in every room of the house.

She says she is traumatized by police because her parents called the police on her as a kid.  But when I listen to the details of those childhood stories - let's see, she admits to cursing at and hitting her dad and stepmom, kicking her dad in the crotch, jumping out of a moving car, running out of a family therapy session... .  knowing what I have been through, I can see why her parents called police.  Her dad was traumatized by those events, too. 

She also tells a story of an ex choking her.  But then she claims that one time I tried to choke her, too, and I know that didn't happen.  One time when she told that story about the ex, she added that she had quit taking all her meds a few days prior, and had thought for weeks that this partner was trying to kill her or hurt her.  Based upon what I have been through, I wouldn't be surprised if it was really my wife who started the confrontation, and the "choking" was merely the partner fighting back or trying to get free.  I'm not saying that's the case, because I don't know.  I'm just saying that based upon my reality differing from hers in events over the past few years, I am wondering if there is another side to her past stories, too. 

[Cat Familiar]

Yesterday, she was telling me that she feels traumatized in every room of the house because she has flashbacks of talking to police in every room of the house.  What she doesn't understand is that I feel the same traumatization, but for me it's from her screaming at me, calling me names, hitting me, or attempting suicide in every room of the house.

Our traumas from their acting out don't count. It's always all about them.

[waverider]

She fears consequences. Being made accountable. This goes against her motivation which is to hand responsibility over. direct consequences to her prevent a stark contrast to her soothing process= failure=traumatic.

I get the same dubious tales about being victimized. There is absolutely no point being suspicious, you will never know and it is a waste of your metal energy trying to get to the bottom of past events.

How many people has she taught you to dislike by these tales of victimization? Some other customer in a shop was rude. man in the queue pushed her, siblings abused her, bullied at school/work.